lonewolffandomcom-20200215-history
Alyss
Alyss is a supernatural being with demi-god like powers who attempts to help Lone Wolf and Banedon through their quests to defeat the forces of evil in Magnamund. Appearance A mischievous-looking and -minded demi-goddess in the service of Ishir and Kai (although her morals, as Lone Wolf discovers, have also potential for evil). She most often appeared as a teenage girl; "Her skin was nut-brown, and her short-cropped hair was coppery red. She was dressed in a battered leather jerkin and ragged trousers. Her face was thin and somewhat pinched; her cheeks were prominent. . . she was about fifteen, . . ." (Eclipse of the Kai, p. 83) Origins It is implied that Alyss is a relic of the truce that Ishir forged with Naar that led to the creation of Aon. Ishir did not fully trust Naar, and so withheld a part of the truth that she infused into the creation; this relic is Alyss. Powers Alyss is described as very powerful. In The Legacy of Vashna, when Lone Wolf first encounters her, he mistakes her for a demon and attacks. Alyss was completely unaffected.Surprisingly Alyss was unaffected even if Lone Wolf was wielding a magical weapon, such as the Sommerswerd or the Dagger of Vashna. In ''Wolf's Bane'', during the climatic battle between Lone Wolf and Wolf's Bane, Alyss stops time to vanquish Wolf's Bane's winged minion. Afterwards, in Naar's throne chamber, she conceals herself from Kekataag and Naar's psychic probes long enough to seize the Moonstone. She further withstands their relentless attacks until Lone Wolf saves her in The Curse of Naar, ''although she was stretched close to breaking point. In the ''Legends of Lone Wolf series, she demonstrates other powers. She conjures the tree branch that knocks Lone Wolf out in his mad dash back to the Kai monstary when Darklord Zagarna attacked, ultimately saving his life. She levitates to fight Vonotar in the aftermath of the massacre, and when Vonotar attempts to hit her with a magic bolt of energy, it passed through her with no seeming effect. When Lone Wolf was killed by fishermen robbers on his way to Durenor to fetch the Sommerswerd, she worked together with the Guildmaster, Banedon, and Ishir to bring him back to life. At various points, she refers to the map of the future as laid out by the Gods, indicating she is both capable of reading the map and of causing small changes to it (such as by saving Lone Wolf). In Hunting Wolf, before the trip to Ikaya, Alyss magically filled Lone Wolf's mind with sledding skills, as well as performed a divination of what Vonotar was up to. Nonetheless, she is not omnipotent. She knew that although Vonotar was not as powerful as her, he was strong enough to resist her for a long time. Further, the strain of resurrecting Lone Wolf also caused her to end up in magical limbo, from which she had to be rescued by Banedon. Encounters She appears late in the gamebook series, with her first appearance in The Legacy of Vashna, where she tells Lone Wolf about the Deathstaff and how to stop Shamath's plans. In Wolf's Bane, she intervenes in the duel between Lone Wolf and Wolf's Bane because she "hates cheats". Afterwards, she was transported to Naar's inner sanctum together with Lone Wolf. When it is revealed that Naar had obtained the Moonstone, she is the one who seized it and used it to conjure a Shadow Gate to send Lone Wolf back to Magnamund. Nonetheless, she is trapped in Naar's inner sanctum, and rescuing her is the focus of The Curse of Naar. At the end of the book, after Lone Wolf successfully defeated Kekataag, she conjures another Shadow Gate to send Lone Wolf home. In this final journey, she thanks Lone Wolf for his aid, confiding that without it she would have lost her freedom to Naar, and that freedom is the most precious thing for her because without freedom she would cease to exist. In the novels she takes on a more prominent role as Lone Wolf's silent guardian and Banedon's love interest. She intervenes many times to keep Lone Wolf alive: first when the Kai are massacred, then again when Vonotar was looking for survivors, and yet again when Lone Wolf was killed by fishermen robbers. In the wake of this last effort she found herself trapped in magical limbo, but she had created a contingency plan: she lured Banedon into a tapestry world, where she siphoned his energy to eventually free herself. According to Alyss, she is destined to fall in love with Banedon in the future. In the prologue of The Sacrifice of Ruanon, the narrator visits the Maakengorge hundreds of years after Lone Wolf's life, looking to relive Lone Wolf's adventure. He encounters a hermit named "Sylas" who tells him the story of the Sacrifice. Sylas is described as having a shock of red hair, and is probably Alyss (the name "Sylas" is also an anagram of Alyss). Alyss also appears in John Grant's, Albion and The World. These two books focus on her in another universe. ☀''In both novels an important part is played by Alyss, who of course started off in the Legends of Lone Wolf. From the first moment that she had introduced herself to me and demanded to be written about -- you cannot believe how little choice I was given in this matter -- it had been obvious that she was a character who couldn't be constrained to a single world, and indeed she has since turned up in all sorts of contexts in my fiction. But ''Albion ''represented her first foray outside Sommerlund. I had forgotten, until I was recently re-editing that book, how I had effected her transition from one world to another . . ." - Paul Barnett aka John Grant '' References Category:Characters of Good